Ranged weapons have a slightly different process now; you no longer LOAD, AIM, FIRE, there is an additional step called READY. For a bow, this involves actually drawing on the bow and begins to drain your stamina until you stop doing it or fire. For a crossbow, it means that you are winding up the winch (obviously doesn't drain your stamina once it's complete). You can also UNREADY a weapon if you like.

Semi-automatic and bolt action modern firearms are now in. These are basically firearms that have an internal magazine and fire rounds. LOAD and UNLOAD insert and eject the magazine respectively, and READY either racks the barrel or bolt to chamber a round. If you continue READYing such a weapon you will eject all the rounds (could be cool for dramatic effect?). UNREADY ejects any rounds currently in the chamber. These weapons have a VERY fast fire rate (especially semi-automatic) and are pretty lethal. In LabMUD they're going to be quite rare, hard to get, and expensive to maintain, but are definitely designed to be as deadly as they are. A gun will be a real status symbol.

There is now a setting in combat settings for various degrees of automation. These range from fully automatic (what it was like previously) to fully manual (auto-system doesn't do anything, player has to do all actions). These settings are for Inventory, Combat Movement, Ranged Combat and Position Management.

Inventory management can be set to Automatic, Automatic but don't discard (won't drop items), Retrieve only (fully manual except it will automatically get/rewield stuff that is disarmed or dropped), and fully manual.

Movement Management can be set to Automatic, Maintain Range (you will skirmish away from melee but won't charge into melee) and Manual.

Ranged Management can be set to Automatic, Maintain Fire Only (you have to do the first AIM/FIRE, but it will keep firing at the same target once you do), and fully manual.

Position management is automatic or manual only. If automatic, you'll auto-stand. If manual, you have to stand manually.

Many actions that were previously disabled when you were in combat are now enabled, but use a new "queue" system. Essentially, many inventory, manipulation and the like type commands will instead queue you to do the appropriate combat version that the automatic system would've selected, on your next combat turn. If you get to a combat turn and for some reason you don't do anything (e.g. when you're on "Fully Manual" and you're not in melee combat), you go into a special state where your next manual action will be instant. Actions that are now queued include get, wear, load, ready, aim, fire, draw, wield, cover, as well as new commands engage and charge (which allow you to manually move to melee range).

There is a combat setting available called "Fully Manual" to allow you to test out the above. I expect some players will prefer to do everything manually although it will be slightly slower than the auto system, just because of latency etc.

You can now DRAG things that are too heavy for you to lift, and you can also drag people. The command is DRAG <target>, and other can then DRAG HELP <target>. You can also specify an optional arguement "By <thing>" if the target has attached, worn or lodged an item flagged as a "Drag Aid". This might include a rope tied around a target or a harpoon lodged in it for example, and these give bonuses to your effective drag capacity. If the group is strong enough, the drag leader drags the target around just by using regular movement commands. The target can STRUGGLE to try to break free of the drag. Coming soon will be melee combat moves that overwhelm the target and initiate a drag (i.e. grappling them into an inescapable position).

You'll also be able to drag a target into cover, which will be useful for dragging wounded comrades into cover in firefights.

There's a new type of combat move for both weapons and unarmed called "Unbalancing". Like staggering blows, these are modified regular attacks with a special effect. While staggering blows are high-strength hits that reel a target (slowing them down) and maybe knock them over, unbalancing attacks are agility-based attacks that are designed to knock an opponent over. I'm planning on building mostly unarmed attacks for these, but the polearm weapon type will get these special attacks. Possibly also swords...

You can now manually choose to do staggering blows or unbalancing blows with the STAGGER and TRIP commands respectively. Coming soon will be a similar DISARM option along with disarming attacks.

I welcome some testing and feedback on the above when the MUD comes back up with these changes (tonight most likely).